Friday 2 May 2025 - A Visit to Chester Zoo

Our last grandparenting day for a while involved a full day at Chester Zoo. The pictures are of just a small selection of what we saw. A blend of indoor and outdoor exhibits, and several play areas, on a day of perfect weather.

Roloway Monkey

Meerkat

Black Rhino

House Sparrows

Love Birds

Mongoose

Mummy Mouse

Rock painting

Butterfly on Grandma's hat

Giant Owl butterfly

Giant slide, on one of several excellent play areas

The rarest tortoise in the world - Madagascar angulated tortoise - rescued from the illegal pet trade

"I'm full, I've just eaten a 8.5 kilo muntjac deer" said the Komodo Dragon

Humboldt penguins

All in all, a lovely day out with a well behaved child.

Thursday 12 April 2018 – Jessica Visits Chester Zoo

We took Jessica’s older brother to the zoo in 2015, when he was 4 years old. I wrote about it here.

Today it was Jessica’s turn, as she is now 4, and can be taken outside the school holidays as she has yet to start school.

Sadly it was a cold day and Jess got fed up at lunchtime, but we did mostly have fun, and I took just a few pictures, some of which are below, to illustrate the occasion.

There is much in addition to those pictured, in particular today we saw butterflies, birds, frogs, an impressive 6.5 metre snake, monkeys and chimps, and much more.

Here are a few lizards.

The giraffes were very frisky. How many in this picture?

The Okapi looks pretty miserable, but as for many of the animals and other species here, the zoo is trying hard to help this species to survive.

I think this is a Monitor Lizard.

The penguins seem attracted to their human visitors.

The elephants were just getting on with family life.

After Jessica had recovered from her lunchtime setback, we took a monorail back to the entrance and visited the meercats, as well as the elephants.

Nearby, a young black rhino lay contented in a smelly house.

It’s mum was camera shy today.

Jess cheerfully posed under a couple of statues.

Then, after five and a half hours at the zoo, we went home.

It was great to have you to stay with us Jessica, and there will be some more pictures from Sue’s camera.

Monday 8 June 2015 – Jacob Visits Chester Zoo

Sue and I enjoyed a lovely day out with Jacob. It was his first visit to a zoo, and our failure to visit the lions and alligators was for good reason. We didn’t want the four year old to have nightmares.

He didn’t seem seem to be bothered by the meercats though, whose main threat here seemed to come from a persistent band of magpies, whose diet maybe matches that of the meercats.

This rhino seemed curious, but posed no threat.

The monorail afforded us good views of zebras and other inmates.

Two types of flamingos were separated by a low fence. These are the dark orange variety (as opposed to the light orange variety).

We whizzed through the aquarium area, pausing only briefly to admire the seahorses.

By way of contrast, we spent an age with the penguins, who were fascinated by Jacob’s lollipop stick, which must have looked to them like a tasty little fish.

I was the only one to catch a proper sight of the giraffes, who were allowed out briefly, but their usual viewing points were closed as one of them had given birth the previous night.

The jaguars are housed in a large enclosed area, but they looked quite happy.

The day passed all too quickly. The four year old showed good stamina and was a pleasure to be with. He’s pictured below with his reward for good behaviour.

We can’t wait to go again. In the meantime, here’s a slideshow (36 images plus any added later from Sue’s album). Click on the first image and then click on ‘slideshow’.